Undoing The “Not Done”

     I hope John Ross, the author of Unintended Consequences, won’t mind the following lengthy excerpt from his book:

     Joe Columbo was a well-guarded organized crime boss who operated in New York in the ’60s and ’70s. In 1972, a mob rival paid someone to murder Columbo during a New York parade. Knowing that the man might be caught and reveal who had hired him, the employer took additional precautions to silence the killer.
     As planned, the hired assassin rushed Columbo during the parade and shot the mob boss. Columbo did not die, but was permanently paralyzed and soon lost control of his crime syndicate.
     When the gunman tried to make his escape, however, five large Sicilian gentlemen tackled him and covered him with their bodies. When the five men stood up, the man who had shot Columbo lay dead with two bullet holes in him. A revolver wrapped in friction tape lay on his body. The entire incident was captured on film by several television cameras.
     The five Sicilian gentlemen refused to talk to the police. So thorough was their refusal that the police were not sure whether the men spoke English, or any other language, for that matter. Attempted interrogations in various dialects were all fruitless.
     All five men tested positive for nitrates on both hands. None of the five, as near as could be determined, had a Social Security number. All five were released by the police after being held for less than 20 hours. None of the five were charged with any crime.
     Some people might ask why a charge of conspiracy was not brought. The fact was that since no one said one word to the police, there was no starting point from which to build a case. The five men could have been tackling the assassin to disarm him, and the trigger of his gun got squeezed twice in the struggle.
     Without testimony, the prosecution could not prove anything, and the DA knew this. The five men walked away.

     The above is a schematic for getting away with something illegal. The key concept is reasonable doubt. When any of five men may (or may not) have committed the illegal act, none of the five can be convicted. There’s no point even in trying them, individually or severally. This principle of the law was also illustrated in the movie The Onion Field.

     If you think this is coming out of left field, consider the incident captured in this article:

     A complete monster today assaulted a woman with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene outside of the DC Gulag.
     The man stood behind a little woman and blew a whistle as loud as he could in her ears. He would not stop and would not leave. The prison staff refused to take action when they were notified of this criminal activity outside of their facility. Do you think they would have come out if it was Pelosi out there?
     This is criminal behavior. At one point he screamed at someone, “Touch, you die!”

     Mike Hendrix is as incensed about this as I am:

     Actually, in the roiling anarcho-tyranny cauldron that is Amerika v2.0, “rights” are now the exclusive property of those bold enough, ruthless enough, to lay claim to and exercise them as they will. As such, this will assuredly continue NOT until someone in a position of official “authority”—a majority of whose sympathies lie with the vicious Leftard ogre above, ALL of whom will follow the unlawful orders they receive from their superiors—deigns to “escort” him anyplace at all.
     No, this will continue until Our Side finally decides to start taking these fiends up on the “You touch, you die!” challenge and leaves a few of them shattered and bleeding on the fucking street, beaten so severely they’re unable to move so much as a fucking finger while they wait for the EMTs to arrive and scrape their foul carcass off the fucking pavement.
     Wolfpack them the instant they even look like starting some more of their shit; snatch a few up; put ’em in the Hurt Locker in a way they’ll forever wish they could forget, maybe cripple a few for life—then and only then might you legitimately be able to expect a change in their behavior, once the word starts to get around. Not a moment before, though.

     The incident got me thinking, when I first read about it. I proposed the following:

• Henceforward, each righteous attendee to such an event shall bring with him:
  1. A six-foot length of stout cord or rope;
  2. A pepper-spray dispenser.
• In the event that a ghoul such as the one at the Taylor-Greene event starts to disrupt it:
  • A person or persons behind the ghoul shall drop his rope over the ghoul’s head;
  • Then shall haul the ghoul down backward onto the ground;
  • The dogpile shall then commence, with immediate unmasking and lots of pepper spray.
• In the event of a “law-enforcement” intervention, no one shall say a word.

     Failing the deployment of rope, a sharp kick to the back of the knee will bring almost anyone to the ground. However, rope is preferred for both tactical and evidentiary reasons.

     This is a countermeasure to the loss of an important component of social life: the invaluable consciousness, once nearly universal, that some things that are technically legal are simply not done. To reinstate that consciousness will require action from the good and decent who already understand its importance. Otherwise, as Mike has pointed out, the most ruthless among us, confident that our general aversion to confrontation will keep us from responding, will have total sway over what may and what may not be said and done.

     If we want such scurrilities to return to the status of “not done,” we’ll have to muster exactly such righteous anger – in quantity. — Me.

     You can have a decent society only if you’re willing to do what it takes to keep it decent. Sometimes, that involves unpleasant necessities: in a word, punishment. It really is that simple.